Bloodborne - Worth Playing After 10 years for the 1st time?

It's important to know a little about the reviewer before you read their article.

I enjoy Action-Adventure, Soulslike games and Bloodborne was in my backlog for a long time, not anymore!

I played Bloodborne for about 25 hours on my PC.. just kidding.. on my PlayStation 5 and here is my review.

As I said earlier, I have experience playing FromSoft games so I knew what I was getting into.

I expected exploration to be sublime and it was, especially the verticality of it. There is no better feeling in the world than stumbling upon a door that takes you back to the save point from where you started initially. This ends up opening a shortcut for you to explore easily and get back to bosses quickly! Nobody does it better than FromSoft and they were not short of their mark in Bloodborne either!

Every path that you take in this game brings you a sense of horror and excitement because something amazing is waiting for you at the end of it.

My biggest concern though was around combat. How fluid the combat will feel after 10 years of release was a worry. But to my surprise it felt as buttery as it could be! However, what I did not like about the combat system was how Parry was designed. While you could parry most attacks, you could only do it in limited amounts as parry was done through a pistol and it was limited by the number of bullets you had. Due to this reason, I decided not to parry at all after the first couple of bosses because I was not in the mood of farming it every time I went to fight a boss.

So if you are playing this game years after its release, chances are you will not like it either given that parry is a straightforward mechanic in current gen games.

As for story, well story in videogames is one thing that is timeless. You go in looking for a cure for yourself and your life turns upside down. You don't know what the reality is anymore. By the time you are done with your first playthrough, you are left with questions and that provokes you to start your next playthrough! In a traditional FromSoft way, cutscenes don't tell you any story. It's through your exploration you find out what's going on in the game and I loved it.

The game can be intimidating at times, especially around bosses. But FromSoft provides more than one way to defeat a boss and all you need is a little bit of patience. As I said earlier, due to limited parries the boss fights were not as fun as it could have been.

Graphics of the game hold up pretty well for its time. You can definitely tell it's an older game but you don't go into a FromSoft game for graphics, do you? It's the exploration and challenges that you overcome that makes your playthrough worthwhile.

The game has plenty of weapons and bosses. The more you explore, the more you find and more rewards you unlock. So if you are planning on playing this game, explore as much as possible to elevate your experience!

Bloodborne released in 2015 and countless people have played it but the question here is, is it worth playing Bloodborne ten years after its release?

Let's find out through this ... kinda review!

I bought Bloodborne 4 years ago, but for some reason I have not been able to play it. You see, I fell in love with FromSoft games through Sekiro. Since then I have played games like Elden Ring, Khazan, Wuchang, Wukong and a few more.

The reason I kept delaying Bloodborne was because I was worried that it would feel dated. But in January of 2026, when I had no other NEW games to play, I did a poll on X, asking people to choose between 4 games I should play next. People chose Bloodborne and hence my journey of Bloodborne begun!

One of the things that I absolutely did not like about the game was farming for Health potions. The game doesn't give you a minimum amount of health potions when you die. You have to farm some potions by fighting enemies to have some of it with you. Then you can go and fight bosses again. I found this mechanic very boring. To get around this I fought most of the bosses without heal potions.

When I finished my playthrough, I said to myself, 'man, I wish I played this game on release'. Not because it feels dated or anything but to share the similar feeling that other players felt when they played this game at launch. Back then everything about Bloodborne was probably refreshing! Now you have multiple titles of FromSoft and other soulslike games where the combat and other mechanics feel a lot better.

To summarize, Bloodborne is a great game even after 10 years of its release. If you are a fan of FromSoft games or Soulslike games in general, you should definitely give it a try. Just be ready to face some dated mechanics like limited parries and potion farming. But if you can get past those, you're in for a thrilling adventure in the dark and mysterious world of Bloodborne!

My goal is to bring you latest gaming news, info, clips and conversation through various platform, be it X, Insta, Tik-Tok, youtube or this blog, where I share my in-length reviews and gaming opinion with the hope that it resonates with some fellow gamers.

SpwanYaard